Cough Syrup
by inkheart9459
Summary: When Andy gets a call at three A.M. she knows it can't mean anything good, not when Miranda is upstairs asleep and her journalist contacts aren't suicidal, but she forces herself to pick up anyway.


Anonymous prompt from Tumblr: "Mirandy prompt? Andy and Miranda find out one of the twins or one of their other kids is an alcoholic or drug addict or cuts or something like that and they don't know what to do." I hope you guys enjoy the story. It's my first time writing this pairing, but I've pretty much read literally everything written about them on Ao3, so hopefully I've got the voices down.

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><p>Andy's phone rang. She looked up at it, it was three in the morning, even her journalist contacts wouldn't call this late. She picked up her phone and looked at the number. It wasn't one she had punched in, but it seemed vaguely familiar. She shrugged and answered it, worst it could be was some teenager prank calling.<p>

"Hello?" She asked.

"Hey, um, Mrs. Sachs-Priestly, um, it's Jenna."

Andy scowled, why would on of Cassidy's friends be calling her this late? "Hi, Jenna, what's going on?"

The girl hesitated for a few long seconds. Andy almost asked what the problem was again. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach now and her instincts had never been wrong. It was part of what made her such a damn good journalist.

"It's Cassidy," Jenna finally said. "She, um, well, she doesn't look so great right now. Usually she's fine after parties, but, um, right now she's throwing up but she's passed out on the floor and she not responsive and I did everything they taught us to do in health class when someone drank too much, but I'm worried."

Andy took in a sharp breath. Cassidy had been drinking? And from the way Jenna spoke it was a regular occurrence. She and Miranda knew nothing about this. They both thought she was at sleepovers with friends every weekend. A silver of fury rushed through her. They'd been duped.

But the next second it was gone, replaced by worry for her child. God, Cassidy probably had alcohol poisoning or something worse.

"Jenna, where are you?"

"Austin Richards house, it's like ten blocks from your house I think. I'm not sure of the exact address." the girl's was steadier, not as stuttering, but much smaller, Andy could barely hear it.

"Find the address and call an ambulance. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"But,"

Andy cut her off. "I don't care about buts right now Jenna. So the party will be interrupted. Deal with it."

Andy slammed the phone shut and scrambled to find running shoes. Waiting for Roy would take too long and at this time of night taxis were a pipe dream. She would run the ten blocks and thank god she kept up a normal workout routine.

But what about Miranda? Cassidy was one of her babies, but she wasn't up right now and there was no way, as fit as the woman was that she could sprint the ten blocks like Andy could. No, she would go and call Miranda at the scene once Cassidy was safe and she would meet them at the hospital.

One quick google search of Austin Richards address and she was out the door, sprinting like she was in the Olympics.

Ten blocks later she was there, sweaty and disheveled, but she forced her way inside around intoxicated teenagers. She grabbed a few to tell her where Cassidy was, but she barely slowed. She found them on the second floor, Cassidy on her side in the recovery position and covered in her own vomit and Jenna beside her looking shaky and scared.

Andy dropped to her knees beside the girl. "Did you call the ambulance?"

Jenna nodded. They said fifteen minutes about ten minutes ago."

Andy sighed. They weren't far out, good. She hurriedly checked over Cassidy and found her still breathing regularly, if a bit shallowly.

She turned to Jenna. "How often does she do this?"

Jenna looked nervous all over again.

"I know you're her friend and don't want to break her confidence, but please Jenna. I need to know."

"Every weekend, sometimes during the week if she's stressed out enough."

Andy closed her eyes. Oh god. She had been hiding this right under their noses and her and Miranda hadn't even noticed. Parents of the year, they were.

"Ok, ok." She swallowed hard. "You did the right thing calling us Jenna." She took out her phone and called Miranda just as a ruckus started downstairs. The paramedics were here.

"Hello," Miranda answered sharp as ever. Even after five years of marriage Andy wasn't sure how she could go from dead out asleep to awake in two rings of a phone.

"Miranda get to Presbyterian as soon as you can. It's Cassidy."

"What do you mean it's Cassidy. Andrea what's going on?" The dragon's voice was in full force.

The paramedics crested the stairs.

"Listen, honey, the paramedics are here I can't talk. Just get there and I'll explain, ok?"

She hung up the phone. Miranda was going to kill her for that later. But needs must and all.

She stood and backed away so the paramedics had room to work.

"Anyone know her allergies?" The beefy paramedic asked.

Andy stepped forward. "I'm her step mother. She's allergic to sulfa but that's it medically."

The man nodded and went back to work with his leaner partner checking Cassidy's vitals. After a minute they pulled the stretcher up beside Cassidy and gently lifted her on to the padded surface. They strapped her on with practiced movements. The beefy one turned to Andy.  
>"Family can ride with us. Where are we taking her."<p>

"Presbyterian."

They both nodded and started towards the door. Andy followed after them, but not before she turned to Jenna and said another thank you to the girl.

The ambulance ride was hectic with two men moving around Cassidy. Andy just sat back and tried to make herself as small as possible.

But Andy preferred that to when they reached the hospital and she was relegated to the waiting room and Cassidy was whisked off to the heart of the ER. She paced the small room, a maximum of seven steps wide before she had to turn around and do it all over again. She was starting to get dizzy after only a few minutes but there was no way that she could sit down so she kept at it.

Until Miranda was storming into the ER, all hell fire and apocalyptic rage. Andy rushed over to the desk before Miranda could toast the nurse on duty too badly. Or maybe she was going to help. She wasn't sure at this point.

"Ma'am I'm sorry, but there are no updates on your daughter yet. A doctor will be out when there's news."

Andy winced. Ma'am. The woman had a death wish. She put her hand on Miranda's upper arm. An icy blue death glare was spared for her before Miranda turned back to the nurse.

"I don't think you understand," Miranda hissed just above a whisper "I want an update on my daughter, or would you like to tell your board of trustees why one of their biggest donators suddenly stopped her contributions to the hospital."

The woman wasn't cowed. "Ma'am,I could call a doctor out here and make them speak to you instead of treating your daughter, but they'll tell you about the same thing I am, that they don't know how she's doing quite yet."

Andy took that as her cue. "Come on Miranda, we'll let them work and you can raise hell later."

Miranda turned to her, eyes that scary pale blue that they only got when she had the fury of an entire army vibrating within her body.

"I know I promised you an explanation of what was going on. Hopefully by the time we're done they'll know something about Cassidy." She tugged on Miranda's arm, and after a little resistance the older woman followed her to the cheap plastic seats that all hospital rooms seemed to come standard with.

Once they were seated Andy took a deep breath. Miranda was going to kill her for more than just the phone call after this. But still she opened her mouth and the whole tale spilled out, from her late night working on her next article to where they were sitting now in New York Presbyterian awaiting news on their eighteen year old daughter.

Miranda had slowly turned to stone during the whole explanation. Andy knew it wasn't a good sign, her mentally shutting down like this, but let her anyway. She needed time to process.  
>When she unfroze she turned to Andy, movements those of a robot, stiff and jerky. "Why didn't you wake me? She is my daughter Andrea, and I wasn't there for her."<p>

Andy heard the implied again at the end of sentence. "Because it would've taken time. She needed someone with her as soon as possible. As it was I got there just before the ambulance did."

"You don't get to make those kind of decisions when it comes to my children."

"Miranda," Andy sighed. She understood but... "I thought we've been through this. I think of them as mine too. You know that I would protect them with my life. For gods sake I just sprinted ten blocks for one of them without a thought. Had there been any time, yes I would have woken you, but the only thought I had was that Cassidy needed one of her mothers and I was going to be there as fast as humanly possible."

Miranda stared at her for a long moment, mulling over her words. Finally, she extended her hand, palm upwards and Andy sighed. It was all the apology that she was going to get, but Andy was just fine with that as her fingers slipped between Miranda's fitting perfectly.

They sat together for a long moment before a doctor came out. Both of them shot up and rushed at the doctor, hands still joined.

The man smiled at them. "Ms. Priestly, your daughter is going to be fine. We pumped her stomach and are administering IV fluids. She's still out of it, but her BAC is coming down nicely into safer levels. She should be up and around in another few hours, but we'll keep her through tomorrow just to make sure there are no complications."

Andy felt Miranda sag just slightly against her at the good news. She let out a breath that she was sure she'd been holing since she got the call from Jenna hours ago.

"Can we see her?" Miranda asked, voice level, but Andy could detect the strain in it still.

"Of course, right this way."

The doctor led them to a private room out of the way. Miranda stepped through and was immediately at Cassidy's side. The doctor excused himself and Andy went to sit beside her wife.  
>Cassidy was pale and drawn, but looked only like she had a cold and nothing more serious. Andy swallowed hard. They were so close to something worse.<p>

"You said that Jenna told you this is a frequent thing," Miranda spoke quietly, but not with her normal menace, only like she was afraid of waking her sick child.

"Yeah, she did."

Miranda turned to her. "What are we going to do, Andrea. She's been hiding this from us for god knows how long, how do we help her?"

Andy bit her lip. "I don't know, Miranda. I really don't, but I'm sure between the two of us we'll figure something out."

Miranda just nodded, the answer enough for now and went back to gripping Cassidy's hand like it was her only lifeline.

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><p>This story now has a continuation called Freedom, so y'all should go read that as well.<p> 


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